Apple's chipmaking partner TSMC is building a new factory in Arizona, but that doesn't mean Apple will make iPhones in the U.S. It won't even make iPhone chips.
A look inside an Apple lab that makes custom chips for iPhone and Mac
Tim Cook and President Joe Biden toured the site of TSMC’s new Arizona factory, which will make chips for Apple but not M-series and A-series Mac and iPhone chips. The facility was completed earlier this year and is expected to start production in 2024. But even though the facility isn’t even online yet and will cost $12 billion, it won’t be advanced enough to make Apple’s processors, which begs the question: Why bother?
“In short, if that first fab comes online in 2024 (which is not certain […]), it will, in the most generous interpretation, be two years behind Taiwan’s 4-nanometer production, and if we’re honest, four years behind the 5-nanometer generation that fab will produce,” industry analyst Ben Thompson writes on his Stratechery blog.
Apple Silicon is far ahead of the competition in terms of its incredible power and low power consumption. This is due to several factors, including the design (Apple’s chips are optimized to run only Apple software, allowing for much more powerful and efficient designs) and also the process used to make the chip.
